Laura Glesby Photos
Alexandra Daum highlights new landscaping and more sustainable energy ...
... as part of Science Hill development projects.
Yale is seeking to build up its scientific campus by digging down into the earth, as revealed during a presentation on future buildings with a massive underground presence.
As incremental work ensues to build out and improve facilities on “Science Hill” between East Rock and Dixwell, university officials convened with a dozen nearby residents at the top floor of the Kline Tower on Thursday evening.
There, Yale leaders pieced together how the university’s science campus — which is roughly bounded by Sachem Street to the south, Whitney Avenue to the east, Edwards Street to the north, and Prospect Street to the west — will broaden, building by building, both above and beneath ground.
“I think this is a huge improvement, a huge addition to the neighborhood,” said Yale Associate Vice President of New Haven Affairs and University Properties (and former top state economic development official) Alexandra Daum, as she pitched the proposed facilities to neighbors.
The proposed future buildings include a massive Physical Sciences and Engineering Building (PSEB), a building of laboratory and classroom space that is slated to comprise almost half of the entire Upper Science Hill Development project, which in total will comprise nearly as much square footage (600,000 square feet) as the Yale Bowl.
On Thursday, presenters revealed that much of that building will be below ground level — up to four of the six stories, depending on the side of the hill from which ground level is measured.
That building will be constructed in phases, with the final stage to be competed in April 2030.
Yale has already begun construction on a new Chemical Safety Building and planned expansions of several nearby parking lots.
Within the next two years, the university also plans to build two additions to the existing Wright Lab building and a service node for the recently-constructed Yale Science Building.
Once all of these additions are complete, Yale plans to demolish the existing Pierson Sage Parking Garage on Edwards Street, the existing Chemical Safety Building, and the western section of the existing Wright Lab building.
Yale is also planning to drill 850-foot geothermal bores into the ground within the next two years — about 190 in total, each of which will harness energy from temperature differences below and above the earth’s surface. The bores will help form a cleaner energy system, to be processed in a thermal plant slated for construction from 2025 to 2028.
That new energy initiative, said Yale Associate Director of Planning Stephen Brown, marks a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really strengthen sustainability.”
When the system is completed, it will reduce energy needs by about 20 percent and provide 50 percent “zero-carbon ready” power (with a potential to further lower carbon emissions with improvements), Brown said.
A map of new buildings proposed for the northeast corner of Science Hill.
The presenters highlighted a redesign of Science Hill’s northeastern corner where Whitney Avenue meets Edwards Street, which focuses on landscaping rather than parking.
“We’ve tried to be purposeful in giving a sense of welcome,” said Ameet Hiremath of TenBerke Architects, who noted that the landscaping will help mitigate stormwater runoff.
The attendees, many of whom said they lived on St. Ronan Street just above the hill, responded to the officials’ presentation with lofty architectural suggestions (incorporate iconography, use brownstone as a key material) and granular traffic-flow questions (about two to three additional trucks will use the surrounding streets when construction is complete, according to Daum).
“I see a lot of lawn areas,” noted Pavla Rosenstein. Will the university use gas leaf blowers and other pollution-producing tools to care for those lawns?
Hiremath responded that the lawns will likely only be mowed about two times per year, and that the firm’s landscaping team has selected plants with an eye on sustainability — for instance, by designing a “rain garden.”
Zeb Esselstyn wondered how Yale will integrate the Science Hill design with the city’s plans for a Whitney Avenue overhaul, which is slated to include a bike lane.
Brown replied that since the street redesign hasn’t been implemented yet, “we have to proceed as though there isn’t a bike lane,” per regulation.
Pavla Rosenstein.
Post-Pandemic, Parking Spaces To Shrink
The presenters did not provide a breakdown of how the replacement of the Pierson-Sage Parking Garage with extensions of the two smaller lots will affect the total number of available spots.
A proposed amendment to the Yale University Central/Science Campus Overall Parking Plan (OPP) that the university has submitted for review to the Board of Alders does provide that breakdown.
A narrative accompanying that proposal states that a total of 661 parking spaces will be removed as a result of the planned demolition of the Pierson-Sage Parking Garage, and 486 will be added through the subsequent construction of a new parking garage atop Yale’s existing Parking Lot 16 (by Whitney and Humphrey), as well as through the addition of parking spaces to Lots 15, 29, and 63.
This all amounts to a reduction of 175 spaces.
Ordinarily, the city’s zoning regulations would require an increase of 76 parking spaces to account for eight new faculty, 96 new employees, and 120 new graduate students expected with the new Science Hill development.
Yale’s amendment proposal states that the loss of 175 parking spaces and the requirement of 76 more spaces should be covered by the “current surplus” of parking in this area of Yale’s campus.
“As of the most recent OPP annual update filed in December 2023 with the Board of Alders, there was an unassigned surplus of 1,336 spaces,” the proposal states. “There is convenient available parking in the OPP within the Science Hill area.”
During a recent City Plan Commission review of the parking plan amendment proposal, Westville Alder and City Plan Commissioner Adam Marchand expressed some surprise that the university wasn’t seeking an even larger decrease in area parking spaces — given the pandemic-induced phenomenon of working from home.
“There are so many people working hybrid schedules [or] all remote,” he said. “I was half expecting” that the university would seek more than a 175-space drop to the parking plan.
Yale-hired lawyer Joe Hammer said that the numbers included in this parking plan amendment proposal are based off of the ratios set by the zoning ordinance, as opposed to by how much use the parking spaces at this part of campus actually get.
The commissioners unanimously recommended approval of the parking plan amendment, sending it to the Board of Alders for further review and a final vote, even as Marchand encouraged the university and his colleagues to think about how “we’re entering just a different reality now than before the pandemic” in terms of work from home — and, therefore, the number of parking spaces required to accommodate office workers.